Religious Eunuchs

Description

Religious Eunuchs

Eunuchs not always Effeminate, And it may not be irrelevant here to remark that the vulgar notion which ascribes to eunuchs effeminacy, and lack of physical courage, as well as intellectual stamina, is wholly unfounded. On the contrary, as we are told by Herodotus, eunuchs were especially prized in Persia for their fidelity and manly courage; Narses, the famous general under Justinian, and Hernials, governor of Atarnea in Mysia, to whose manes Aristotle offered sacrifice, having both been eunuchs;* and under the Roman emperors the same class of persons frequently rose to the highest exercise of power.